a major narrative twist. It’s like a famous person dying and everyone’s smartphones lighting up with the newsbreak, people scrabbling to post it first online. You know of them but don’t really care about them, so are free to enjoy the thrill of the event.
I finally understand why my late gran used to scan the obituaries column in the local paper with such relish, despite her enhanced odds of ending up in it herself.
‘Welcome, everybody, to this service to remember the life of Susannah Hart, a person I know was very dear to many of you gathered here today.’
And yet not very dear to one.
I look at the back of Finlay Hart’s head, staring straight ahead, and wonder what he’s thinking.
A Celebration of the Life of Susannah Hart
I focus on these words until they’re no longer the English language. It feels like they’ve bored holes into me.
The celebrant’s recitation of the key dates and events in Susie’s life, reiterating her value to all of us, a poem, ‘Life Goes On’ by Joyce Grenfell, read by Susie’s Auntie Val.
‘Nor when I am gone / Speak in a Sunday voice.’
A piece of music, Billie Holiday, ‘The Very Thought of You’. We wrestled with this choice: Vivaldi and Val Doonican are so easy to slot in when a pensioner passes, crematorium-appropriate, but Susie’s love of the Pet Shop Boys wasn’t quite so useful. Much as we loved them too, it was hard to imagine everyone trying to remain impassive and pensive listening to ‘Paninaro’.
‘“Being Boring”?’ Justin said, but although there was consensus it was great and apt, we couldn’t imagine the poppiness of it working.
Thankfully, I remembered how much Susie loved Billie Holiday sound-tracking a late bar we found in Rome, her seeking an album out and playing it endlessly when we got home. It’s a catalyst, and as soon as it starts up, I’m back getting drunk on Aperol Spritzes with her, in a bar lit by a jukebox and tealights, making plans for a future she barely got to see. My face is a flash flood.
Then, it’s Ed’s turn, I see him stand up at the end of the row, his notes in his hand. Listening to Ed read out my tribute to Susie was going to be extraordinarily agonising, before last night’s discovery. Now I don’t have a way of categorising my emotional response.
At the lectern, he coughs into a curled fist and looks up at everyone. The sight of him momentarily blurs in my tears as I blink them back.
‘Afternoon,’ he says. ‘I may only be thirty-four years old, but I’m going to guess this will forever be the toughest public speaking gig of my life. As a teacher, I include the time fifth-formers smuggled a dozen two-litre bottles of Magners in on the last day of term.’
He gives a thin smile. It’s not as if audiences at funerals can give you much encouragement by way of laughter.
‘What I’m about to read to you has been written by Susie’s best friend, Eve.’ Justin squeezes my knee as Ed looks toward me. I would squeeze back, but I will primal howl.
Who are you, Ed? I never needed to rely on you more than now. The rug has been pulled from under me. I can’t imagine ever trusting you again.
‘Eve was not only one of the people who Susie loved most in this world, and vice versa, she’s also very good with words,’ he says. ‘We thought it fitting she say a bit about Susie from the perspective of her friends. Eve can write, I can read, so this is a team effort.’
He coughs again and I tense, waiting for my words in Ed’s voice. Whatever else, I’m very glad I didn’t try to read it myself. I wouldn’t make it through a sentence.
‘Eve met Susie in primary school in the 1990s. The first photo of them together is in a nativity play. Susie was the Virgin Mary, always natural casting as a lead, and Eve was the back half of a camel. Always a natural to cast as a dromedary’s arse.’
Ed looks up and says: ‘Just to remind you again, Eve wrote this.’
He gets an actual laugh.
‘There followed what was to become a notorious incident at Saint Peter’s C of E Primary, where the front half of the camel passed out and vomited into the head of the costume, and the back half of the camel struggled out and stood there dressed in vest and pants, and some vomit spray.